Page 213 of Modern Romance June 2025 1-4

‘I forgive you, Emilio.’ Enzo smiled.

Emilio hadn’t been prepared for what he’d feel at those words. It was as if they stemmed the flow of a gushing wound.

‘I have to atone.’

‘You already have. Emilio, you need to know that you don’t have to earn affection. You deserve to be with someone who deservesyou. And, as I hear it, you have found someone.’

‘Not any more.’

‘What happened?’ Enzo sounded genuinely concerned, and it occurred to Emilio that this was what he had craved from his brother growing up: this ability to talk, to share. And, when he hadn’t got that, when he’d been jealous and angry, it had been so much easier to hate Enzo instead.

Have you considered…that perhaps you want the vineyards, not just for our child or what they meant to your mother, but also to have Enzo back in your life in some way?

Emilio should have listened to Jasmine from the start. His mother, in her infinite wisdom, was trying to bring them together from beyond the grave. Maybe he needed to stop being so stubborn.

He told Enzo everything.

‘So you forced her to marry you?’ Enzo asked with raised brows.

‘Don’t you dare judge me. I was doing the right thing.’

‘The right thing for whom? That’s your child, Emilio. They would have been family regardless of whether you were married or not. I wouldn’t have judged you.

Emilio scoffed. ‘You wouldn’t?’

‘I have had time to reflect on a lot,’ Enzo admitted. ‘Jasmine needed a choice, a real choice. I have seen the damage forcing someone into marriage can do. I have destroyed someone for being guilty of it.’

‘Destroyed…?’ That was a strong reaction for someone as controlled as Enzo. It must have something to do with the person Enzo had said he’d met, and Emilio found himself wanting to know what had happened—not out of curiosity, but because he wanted to know what was going on his brother’s life. ‘I think you have a lot to tell me too.’

Enzo laughed. ‘You have no idea.’

Emilio looked down at his wedding band, all that was left of Jasmine in his life. ‘She said I don’t trust myself.’

‘Do you?’

Emilio only had to think of the things Jasmine had said when she was leaving to answer that question. ‘No.’

‘Then you have to work on that. It sounds to me like you both need each other. You allow her to be all of who she is, and she makes you want to be better. You just need to believe that better man is who you are. One bad action doesn’t make you a bad person, Emilio.’

‘How can you say that? If it weren’t for me, you would have been married.’

‘I would have, and I would have been miserable, but more importantly I would have missed out on Charlotte—and she is the love of my life. But, Emilio, that love was hard fought for. Do you truly love Jasmine?’

‘With my soul.’

‘Then fight for her. Has she sent you a separation agreement yet?’

‘No,’ Emilio realised. A small spark of hope bloomed in the darkness.

Enzo smiled. ‘So all isn’t lost. Get her back.’

Emilio had spent the last three weeks in a spiral of regret and heartache. He’d been so consumed with his angst that he hadn’t considered the very thing that his brother had noticed in mere minutes: Jasmine hadn’t started divorce proceedings. She hadn’t returned the ring either. And she was always so on top of things that it couldn’t mean nothing. Why hadn’t he seen it weeks ago?

‘I have to go.’

‘Yes, you do.’ Enzo grinned.

Emilio grabbed his keys off his desk and rushed for the door, leaving his brother in his office.

---